Profile: Lord Myners

On being asked about his previous incarnation as a financial journalist, Lord Myners replied that he made up for a lack of flair and skill with energy and hard work. "I think that's often been a feature of my life," he said.

By Patrick Sawer

9:00PM GMT 28 Feb 2009

A glance through his CV – littered with numerous directorships, trusteeships and chairmanships – quickly confirms that he has flourished on what might once have been called hard graft.

That willingness to work hard will be fully required over the next few days if he is to rescue his reputation from its bruising clash with Sir Fred Goodwin over the issue of the former RBS chief's pension.

Lord Myners was brought into the Cabinet as part of Brown's "Government of all the talents". His appointment proved controversial from the start, however.

He had donated £12,700 to Mr Brown's leadership campaign in 2007 and was the director of a hedge fund which had profited from the collapse of Bradford & Bingley by short-selling shares in the bank.

As the row over Sir Fred's pension gathered pace, there were whispers that, for all his business acumen, Lord Myners had shown political naïvety and inexperience in appearing to agree to the "compromise deal" which allowed Sir Fred to draw on his £693,000 a year pension.

Some argue the money need never have been be paid if only Lord Myners had persuaded the RBS board to sack Sir Fred, instead of allowing him to walk away,

Ruth Lea, economic adviser to City stockbroker Arbuthnot, said: "He could have been more careful. You are dealing with taxpayers' money."

One banker with Whitehall experience said: "If you are paying somebody off you always look closely at is the discretionary element of the pension pot. He should have asked some more probing questions about this."

Lord Myners background is one of constant striving for achievement. Adopted from an orphanage in Bath by a Cornish family – "I know nothing about my natural parents. I don't wish to," he later stated – the young Paul managed to win a scholarship to an independent Methodist college in Truro.

He went on to the University of London, from where he graduated with first class honours in education. But after only two years as a secondary schoolteacher in the hothouse atmosphere of the now-defunct Inner London Education Authority, he quit the profession and took up financial journalism, joining the Daily Telegraph in 1972.

Three years later Myners moved to NM Rothschild & Sons as a portfolio manager. It proved to be the start of a long and successful career in the financial sector.

Rising through the ranks at the firm he was eventually asked to join the pension fund manager Gartmore as chief executive in 1985, making both his name and an estimated £30 million fortune.

He took up directorships at the Bank of New York, Coutts, IMRO, Lloyd's Market Board, NatWest, O2 and Orange as well as serving on the Commission on English Prisons and the Green Fiscal Commission, which studies environmental taxes and legislation.

He also became a trustee and the Royal Academy Trust and chairman of the Association of Investment Trust Companies.

It is said he would spend much of his working day scuttling between one meeting and the next while going through papers in the back of his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce,

In 2004, he was headhunted to be chairman of M&S where he successfully defended the high street chain from a takeover attempt by Sir Philip Green.

Following the showdown, Sir Philip is said to have made clear his feelings about the man who had thwarted his ambitions, saying that he had wanted to give Myners "a proper ---ing kick in the head".

That experience prepared Myners for the intensity of orchestrating the £500 bail-out of the British banking system last October, after he was appointed as City minister, tasked with steering his economic "war cabinet".

Within days, he found himself working through the night with Treasury officials, fuelled by takeaway curries, to prepare the bank rescue Bill and informing the bosses of three of Britain's biggest banks that the taxpayer was taking a £50 billion stake in their businesses.

He said at the time: "In my working life I've been through many critical days. The one that springs to mind is around the Philip Green bid for M&S. This [bank rescue] is no different in that there are days of great intensity when you know that there are crucial moments."